The Adorable And Affordable IKEA Hack That'll Brighten Up Any Room In Your Home

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Cascading piles of teacups filled with flickering candlesticks are the sort of stuff that Alice-in-Wonderland stories are made of. Enchanting. Sweet. Gravity-defying. And for crafters who love IKEA, they're the kind of thing that decorative candle displays are made of. The only difference, of course, is that the stack of cups in the Alice stories is held together by magic and shrink potion, whereas the IKEA DUKTIG 8-piece miniature teacup playset and candlesticks gets its cohesion from a little museum wax.

For this cute DIY, the IKEA teacups are stacked in different configurations to form a candlestick that your tealights and tall, thin pillar candles can nest in. The key to making this stack of Lilliputian-sized teacups stay together is museum wax. This special clear exhibit wax, made by companies like Quakehold!, is a hack that top museums around the world use to keep priceless artifacts on shelves in earthquake-prone areas. It's easily removed, making it easier to work with, in some respects, than hot glue would be. If you don't like the candlestick you've built, you simply take the museum wax off and restack the cups to your liking.

The teacups, which will set you back less than $9, boast a simple paint job — just basic colors, like pink and green. To repurpose your teacups for this project, you'll fancy them up with the help of dual-tip acrylic paint markers, such as these from the Coogert Store. With this tool, your inner Matisse will be released. Finally, to light this thing up, you'll want to choose either some tealights or taper candlesticks to stuff the miniature cups with.

The IKEA DUKTIG teacup playset comes with both cups and saucers. To make this DIY structurally sound, plan on using the saucers, particularly at the base of the candlestick, to ensure that the display has a good base to stand on. Before you stack the cups and saucers, you'll add your own artistic flair to them, using the paint markers.

The design is up to you, but if you do want to introduce a specific decorating theme, like "Alice in Wonderland," be sure to employ some of the motifs that go with that design style — in this case, checkerboard patterns and little roses. If this project is part of the quirky pattern-drenching decorating moment you're embracing, you have the freedom to mix stripes and squares and curliques, though there is an underlying rule to keep in mind: Have a unifying color scheme. To that end, be sure to include some of your home's decor colors in your tea cup designs. You can extend this concept further by choosing patterned candles, like the Creative Co-Op Store's black-striped taper candles. Once your painting efforts are done, put the tea set in a 200-degree-Fahrenheit oven for one hour.

Once they're done setting in the oven, stack the teacups in the configurations you like best, fastening them to one another with a bit of museum wax. Do the same with the candles you put inside the top cup in the stacks. And pro tip: If you're still concerned about the stack toppling over, use a little museum wax on the bottom base cup, too, to keep the tower of tea cups upright.